January Cyber War and Cyber Conflict Link Roundup

Wow, what a month. Two big stories to note: USCC is seeking to grow over 5x to 4900 people, and the NYTimes (and WSJ it seems) have been hacked, purportedly by the Chinese over their China coverage. In other news, a new discovery of the 'Red October' campaign filled the headlines, although by now these sorts of things feel standard issue. On a related note, DARPA is getting ready to issue a BAA for their CAT program, using big data to tackle targeted attacks.

Israel is developing a national program that trains young people for cyber warfare to boost its ability to deal with the increasing number of online attacks.
According to The Jerusalem Post's report Wednesday, the program named "Magshimim Le'umit" has been in development for the past three years and targets outstanding pupils aged between 16 and 18 to join up.
Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the country's computer systems are facing attacks from Iran and other countries, and such attacks are set to increase in the digital age. The goverment is also bolstering its ability to deal with these threats through the Israel National Cyber Bureau (INCB), he added.

In 2012, large-scale cyberattacks targeted at the Iranian government were uncovered, and in return, Iran is believed to have launched massive attacks aimed at U.S. banks and Saudi oil companies. At least 12 of the world's 15 largest military powers are currently building cyberwarfare programs, according to James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A major cyber-attack that may have been stealing confidential documents since 2007 has been discovered by Russian researchers.
Kaspersky Labs told the BBC the malware targeted government institutions such as embassies, nuclear research centres and oil and gas institutes.
It was designed to steal encrypted files - and was even able to recover files that had been deleted.

MPs have complained about government 'complacency' in their assessment of when military forces should involve themselves in cyber warfare, pointing to a potentially fatal reliance on inadequately protected systems.
In a report released today, the Defence Committee said the government did not appear to have a fully-constructed plan for dealing with a major cyber attack. Meanwhile, the ever-changing threat landscape, coupled with a major reliance on IT, made for a potentially lethal brew for the UK military as it prepares for cyber warfare.

U.S. intelligence officials have warned as nation-sponsored cyber warfare goes mainstream this year, attacks on U.S. installations and institutions could result not just in damage and theft but in fatalities.
They believe fatalities could occur and "that is the best estimate at this point," said the former senior intelligence official.
Currently 12 of the world's 15 largest military powers are building cyber warfare programs, these intelligence sources told ISSSource, adding the number of intrusions and attacks has increased dramatically over the last several years.

The Defense Department hopes to offload some of the work of analyzing network vulnerabilities to a machine, Pentagon officials said on Friday.
The Cyber Targeted Attack Analyzer is intended to reduce the workload for the department?s short-handed cyber forces by organizing information from 'disparate network data sources' to more easily see computer abnormalities, according to the Pentagon's laboratory. Information technology development efforts will kick off with a briefing for prospective contractors on Jan. 30, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency officials said. DARPA expects to release a solicitation for project proposals within a few weeks afterward.
The trick will be reeling in all that intelligence from devices that are not necessarily compatible.

The Pentagon has announced the initiation of a program to develop an integrated threat analysis system that will significantly improve the Defense Department?s ability to identify network security vulnerabilities by leveraging the power of Big Data analytics. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Innovation Office (I2O) will host an informative briefing on January 30th in a run-up to a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) in a few weeks that will include a Request for Information (RFI) that will officially commence the process for accepting proposals from vendors for the development of the Cyber Targeted-Attack Analyzer (CAT) Program, according to a Special Notice released by DARPA, the DoD's research and development branch.

The number of attacks reported to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity response team grew by 52% in 2012, according to a recent report from the team. There were 198 attacks brought to the agency's attention last year, several of which resulted in successful break-ins.
An earlier report from DHS sketched in details on some of those successes. An unidentified group of hackers targeting natural gas pipeline companies gained access to the corporate systems of several of their targets and "exfiltrated" -- that's security-speak for "stole" -- data on how their control systems work.

The Army's Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate, known as I2WD, hosted a classified planning day Nov. 28. Representatives from 60 companies and labs attended to discuss what can be done in the realm of electronic warfare and cyber, according to a source familiar with the program.
The roughly half-dozen objectives of the Tactical Electromagnetic Cyber Warfare Demonstrator program are classified. (The TECWD program is pronounced 'techwood' by participants.) The source said the program is designed to demonstrate ready-made systems, dubbed 'boxes,' that can perform a variety of tasks. Some are somewhat typical fare, like systems aimed at the improvised explosive device threat.
But among the objectives are these: inserting and extracting data from sealed, wired networks.

General William Shelton, commander of the US Air Force Space Command, told reporters in a press briefing for the Defense Writers Group that he believes Iran's growing "cyber" capabilities will be a "force to be reckoned with," thanks in part to Iran's response to the Stuxnet attacks on its nuclear facilities in 2010.

The front pages have been dominated for more than a year by photos of young Syrian rebel fighters, armed and proud, battling an increasingly isolated Syrian military.
But amid the shooting, the atrocities and the bombings, there is a parallel war - a sophisticated cyber insurgency battling a shadowy team working on behalf of the Assad regime. The Syrians' online conflict may be the most active cyberwar in recent memory, with extraordinary efforts by both sides to sabotage, disrupt and destroy. It may even foreshadow the way cyber battles will play out in future conflicts.

The Head of FETA (Iran's cyber police) says the police has identified the source of attack to US Citibank, and denies that Iranians have a role in attack, Mehr News Agency reported from Tehran on Sunday.
"The attack sources have not been located inside Iran and even Iranian users have been victimized," says Brigadier General Seyed Kamal Hadianfar, the head of Iranian Cyber Police in an interview to Mehr News.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Thursday likened the threat posed by foreign hackers to "modern-day, 21st century nuclear weapons" and pledged to use diplomacy to avert cyber attacks against the nation?s power grid, transportation system and financial networks.

President Vladimir Putin recently ordered the Federal Security Service to create a system to allow the state to detect, prevent and disable cyberattacks in Russia and at diplomatic stations abroad. It is an ambitious goal and one that the FSB is well-equipped to tackle with the help of its Information Security Center and Communications Security Center. But the FSB might very well go beyond its immediate mandate to neutralize hacker attacks against Russia and expand its cyberspace presence among members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, perhaps even gaining access to information on hacker attacks waged around the world.

The Pentagon has approved a major expansion of its cybersecurity force over the next several years, increasing its size more than fivefold to bolster the nation’s ability to defend critical computer systems and conduct offensive computer operations against foreign adversaries, according to U.S. officials.

SAN FRANCISCO — For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees.
After surreptitiously tracking the intruders to study their movements and help erect better defenses to block them, The Times and computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from breaking back in.

But information warfare, warfare pursued with information technologies, distorts concepts like "necessity" and "civilian" in ways that challenge these ethical frameworks. An attack on another nation's information infrastructure, for instance, would surely count as an act of war. But what if it reduced the risk of future bloodshed? Should we really only consider it as a last resort? The use of robots further complicates things. It's not yet clear who should be held responsible if and when an autonomous military robot kills a civilian.

I can already hear the chuckling. 'Cyber warfare' Balanced? And I'd like partisanship in Washington to end, a double date with Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson, and some fries with that!? Yes, my desire is utopian, but the fact that I would have to qualify it with a self-deprecating remark suggests the distance that we have yet to travel before we can get more value out of our present conversation on the topic of cyber warfare.

Yet, 90 percent of US critical cyber infrastructure is owned by the private sector. Melissa Hathaway, who served as the cyber coordination executive for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), has rightly pointed out that corporate and political leaders "appear to be paralyzed about meeting the needs for our cyber infrastructures and enterprises." This current deadlock undercuts American security interests, and Congress must strike a balance between competing policy perspectives for cyber security. The dilemma is that earning a profit motivates industry, while protecting national security motivates the USG. Although often complementary, these agendas do compete. What is required is a confluent approach that removes legislative obstacles to stronger cyber security, forges robust partnerships between the public and private sectors, and better manages risk in the global supply chain. A review of current US strategy and the threat matrix is instructive in framing a new approach.

As more people come to rely on the Internet, they rely on it to be secure. And as the online world becomes a part of everything we do, securing that world is essential to ensuring a society that remains secure, prosperous and free.

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